Are You Hiding?
by ritaskeetaggo
Summary: When Lucas is confronted by Brooke, after her stay at his house in Season Five, about the Lindsey-Peyton conflict, what will follow? A/N: Should be a relatively short fic, first one, so I hope it's not totally sucky! M for later chapters!
1. Choices

Brooke woke up at 6:00 A.M., groggily lifting her head off of Lucas's shoulder. "Hey, Luke? Wake up, we slept on the couch all night."

"What? Oh…alright. This is me, getting up," he mumbled as he tried desperately to drift off back to sleep.

"Luke?" Brook asked, knowing that there was no time like the present for her question.

"What's up super-mom?"

"Do you really love Lindsey? Or are you just trying to hide from getting your heart broken with Peyton again?"

Lucas was suddenly as alert as if he had consumed an entire bag of Lindsey's favorite chocolate-covered espresso beans. "I _love_ Lindsey, Brooke. You of all people should understand that! I can't believe that you, of all people is here trying to counsel me about relationships!"

"Luke, I'm sorry, but you're killing Peyton with the choice you've made, and I just want to know that, if she has to be tortured like this, it's for the right reasons, not because you're too stupid and…_guyish!_ to follow your heart back to her." After pausing for a moment to collect her self, Brooke quickly gathered both her sketches and Angie's things, moving towards the door. "I know you won't stay angry with me, Luke…and I thought that it would be worth a fight to know that you're make a decision that won't leave you angry with yourself. I'll go." She quickly left the house, hurrying home to prepare for the Macy's meeting.

As Lucas moved about Tree Hill that day, trying to find a place where he could concentrate on his new novel, Brooke's words kept swirling through his head. "Follow your heart…Do you really love Lindsey?...Are you just trying to hide?" Finally, he decided that enough was enough; he was going to go find Lindsey and prove his feelings for her, once and for all.

When he arrived in New York, Lucas took the first cab he could find straight to Lindsey's office, barging through the hallways and into her office.  
"Lucas, what are you-"

He cut her off abruptly as he swept her into the single most incredible kiss of her life. She felt as if she could live and die, contently, in his arms, at that moment.

Lucas's head was also spinning, but, rather than feeling a rush of pure and undiluted ecstasy, all he could do was compare this safe, comfortable pleasure to the sense of completeness, of fire and ice and wind and water storming through his body, that he felt when it was Peyton in his arms. The two sensations were truly…incomparable.

When he finally broke the kiss, Lindsey looked up at him, praying for another declaration of his undying love.

**A/N: Once again, I hope you guys liked it! Please R & R, don't be gentle just 'cause I'm a newbie!**


	2. That Choice Was Made Six Years Ago

"I'm sorry, Lindsey. I just can't do this anymore." Lucas heard those words leave his mouth and, almost immediately after he spoke them, he realized what they meant. In kissing Lindsey and finally, unknowingly confronting his feelings for Peyton, he had proved Brooke right. He was hiding. Hiding from his destiny, hiding from the woman that he had loved since before he had even met her, hiding from himself, and from the fear that opening his heart again would leave him as bruised and broken as his last real attempt at loving had.

"When you hide from something or someone, the only thing that you really hide from is yourself, your fear of failure, your insecurities, the belief that, when you truly love someone, the world is almost sure to pull them away from you, the tragic knowledge that hope is almost always the harbinger of heartbreak." These were the first truly meaningful words that Lucas had been able to write in months, and they seemed to simply spill out of their own accord, a river of letters swirling into a sea of words.

As he gazed down at them, he heard a knock at the front door. "Peyton, hi. I was just about to come talk to you about something. Do you want to…come in?"

Her legs and lips and sweetly scented hair were like poetry in motion as she walked shyly into the living room. "Well, I was just coming to see how you were doing. With Lindsey and all. So, why don't we start with your issue. What's up?"

"Well, first of all, Lindsey and I are over."

"Oh, Luke! Are you OK? What can I do to help?"  
"Lindsey and I ended things because of you, Peyton. Because of our past…and present."

"Luke, I don't even know what to say. I'm sooooo sorry! I'll talk to Lindsey if you want me to; I'll go to New York, call her, just tell me what to-"

She suddenly lost her breath as he took it away, pressing his thumb gently to her lips. "I ended things with Lindsey, Peyton. Because of you. Because it's always been you."


	3. That Moment in the Sunset

A/N: This next chapter is going to be kind of an experiment

**A/N: This next chapter is going to be kind of an experiment. Switching points of view. You'll be able to figure out whose point of view it is by reading, but I'll divide the sections. The story will remain the third-person, though. Thanks so much for the reviews!! : )**

A metaphorical ice cube ran down Peyton Sawyer's spine as she stood in the color-drenched living room of Lucas's house. The sunset had painted the room into bright yet dusky pigments, throwing Lucas's face into sharp relief, highlighting everything Peyton loved about him. The contures of his lips and chin, the rugged golden tone of his skin, and, most of all, the perfect and beautiful soul visible in his eyes. "I love you, Peyton Sawyer. I always have, and I always will."

She stood, a perfect statue, as her mind raced to process both his words and the passion in his eyes. As she stood there, attempting to calculate exactly what her next words and actions should be, Peyton suddenly and inexplicably realized that she had never and would never need to think about anything when it came to Lucas Scott. She slowed her mind and allowed herself to take in his insecure yet heated eyes, eyes overflowing with all of the emotions that she herself had been unavailingly trying to get rid of for the past few months.

For the first time in almost five years, Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer walked up to Lucas Eugene Scott and kissed him in a way that allowed her to feel safe, secure in the fact that she would never have to struggle or lie or cheat for love again. She felt, in a single word, complete.

Peyton was standing in the living room, hardly seeming to hear the words of love and devotion leaving Lucas Scott's lips as he declared his love for her. She was perfect, standing in the reds and pinks of the plum-tinted sunset. Every novel, poem, or essay that he had ever written or read could be woven into the radience that she seemed to produce so effortlessly.

As she stood, staring off into space, Lucas became more and more afraid that he had waited too long. She was unknowingly twisting and fidgeting with the sleeve of her long, black Burberry coat. Finally, just as Lucas began to lose himself in the endless dance between Peyton's hair and the last rays of sunlight sneaking through the window, she snapped back into awareness. She moved toward Lucas with a passion that seemed a carbon copy of his own.

For the first time in almost five years, Lucas Scott held Peyton Sawyer tightly in his arms again, with one hand playing in her hair and the other pressing into the small of her back, in a way that allowed him to feel her safety and security in that moment, and which allowed him to feel alive once more, to feel and savor the seemingly lost sensations and emotions now rekindled and coursing heatedly throughout his body. He felt, for lack of a better term, complete.

**A/N: Hope this little bit of fluff perked your day up as much as it did mine! God Bless! : )**


	4. NOTE

Hey guys I've decided to end the story here, just because I like some open endings

Hey guys I've decided to end the story here, just because I like some open endings. Every time I try to add to the story I just come up with something that fits my mood, so let your imaginations run wild and play whatever ending you want the story to have in your head. If you're anything like me, it'll be like having a private screening of your personal episode.

Thanx much!


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